Articles by Brianna Ahearn

Despite their child's protests, back-to-school shopping is on the minds of American parents as we head into July. The question on many retailers' minds is “Just how much will parents be spending?” and they now have their answer. A new poll by National Retail Federation shows that parents plan to spend more than previous years for the 2015-2016 school year.

Big Lots, the discount and close-out retailer, has just announced the expansion of their online presence with the arrival of their new website, Big Lots Latino. The website is an information hub geared toward their Hispanic-speaking customers. The retailer has gone bilingual in an effort to reach more of their customer population, particularly as a large portion of the U.S. population speaks Spanish. Big Lots shared the news of their new site with a press release this week.

Drugstore retailer CVS will purchase Target's pharmacy business for a reported $1.9 billion. The companies announced the news on June 14. The deal covers both Target's pharmacies and clinics. CVS will take over all of Target's pharmacies located in 47 states.

Survey results released last month show that interest in mobile payment options are increasing, with 25% of smartphone owners in the survey indicating they were likely to use a mobile payment app. In the post-Apple Pay world, consumers have a lot of choices at the checkout, and the landscape is changing. Companies like Google have to find ways to compete with Apple Pay, while brands like Samsung work to develop their own technology for the option. This leads to a competitive market, where companies need to offer the newest and best features.

A new tour of the Microsoft Retail Experience Center for Seattle's KING 5 in Redmond shows consumers and retail experts the evolving face of retail technology. In a news post on June 2, KING 5's Josh Green gave the first video tour of the facility. The video detailed the innovation and tricks of the trade Microsoft offers brick and mortar retailers to compete with the fast-paced world of online retail.

Kroger, the largest supermarket chain in the United States, has just received recognition for their stores' technology and innovation for consumer food safety. The retailer announced on June 3 via press release that their company was named a winner of the 2015 CIO 100 Award by International Data Group's CIO Magazine. Kroger won due to their FAST Alerts, a state-of-the-art food temperature monitoring system the retailer uses in their stores, and will be presented with the award in Colorado this August in a formal ceremony.

Loss prevention and customer engagement is a prevalent issue for many retailers, and with new technology comes ways to minimize theft and damage to products in-store. Earlier this month Indyme, a provider of real-time shopper engagement and loss prevention technologies, presented their Smart Sense Touch™ at the RILA Retail Asset Protection Conference.

Ascena Retail Group, the parent company of Lane Bryant and several other women's apparel brands, will buy Ann Taylor and LOFT for $2 billion from Ann Inc. The deal was announced Monday, and will bring Ascena Retail Group's apparel empire to a combined 4,900 stores located throughout the world.

Sally Beauty Holdings has suffered a new security breach for cards used at their U.S. Sally Beauty stores, the retailer confirmed via a statement on May 4, 2015. Investigation into the breach is currently underway and Sally Beauty will update their customers with any issues or further concerns that may arise. The breach was described as “unusual activity involving payment cards” in the statement. Sally Beauty is currently working with law enforcement and their credit card processor, as well as a third-party forensics expert, to determine the depth of the breach and gather facts.